A short beginner guitar lesson (YouTube) by Lauren Bateman teaching how to play 'Knockin' on Heaven's Door' (Bob Dylan; also covered by Guns N' Roses). The instructor explains a simple four-chord progression (G, D, A minor, C), the beat counts per chord, demonstrates a verse/chorus, and shows a basic and slightly more embellished strumming pattern for learners.
Today, what we're going to do is go over a very simple song called Knocking on Heaven's Door by Bob Dylan. It was also redone by Guns N Roses, so they did a little bit more of a rocking version of the song. I think they're in the same keys, though. So what we're going to do is this song is very, very repetitive. That's why it's one of my simple songs. So it requires us to memorize only four measures of music that repeats over and over and over and over again to get us through the entire song. So some of these chords are played for half a measure, meaning we're only going to count two beats on them. So we're going to strum twice. So those chords are G and D. The G and D chord always have two beats. So the chord progression for this song is G for 2 beats, D for 2 beats, followed by a minor for 4 beats. Then we go back to G for 2 beats, D for two beats, and then we end on C major for the last chord. So we have G, two beats, D, two beats, A minor for full four beats, then G, two beats, D, 2 beats, and then a C for full measure of four beats. So we're just gonna keep the simple strumming. Four strums per chord. Unless it's a G or D, we're gonna do two strums, and let's see how it goes. We're going to start from that first part of the chord progression. So I'll count us in. 1, 2, 3, 4.
And G2, D2, A minor, 2, 3, 4. And G2 D2. And C2, 3, 4.
And. And that's the whole thing. And then we just repeat it again.
G2, D2, A minor, 2, 3, 4. G2, D2, and C2, 3, 4.
And that's the same pattern for the verses and the choruses. So I'm going to go through and I'm going to. I'm going to skip the intro, but I'm going to play the kind of first voice verse of this song. Well, I'll do a verse in chorus just so that you can hear. So we got.
Mama, take this badge from me.
I can't use it anymore.
It's getting dark, too dark to see.
Feels like I'm knocking on heaven's door.
And the chorus.
Knock, knock, knocking on heaven's door two, three, four.
Knock, knock, knocking on heaven's door two, three, Four. And G2D to A minor.
Knock, knock, knock Nothing on heaven oh.
Yeah, yeah so there you go you have the entire song. Now if you want to spice this up a little bit, if, if you can do a little bit more than just down strums, you can do a down, down, up. So that's basically 1, 2 and 3, 4. And so it'll sound like this.
On the G it's going to be down, down, up.
And then on D it's going to.
Be down, down, up.
And then on M8Aminor, it's going to.
Be down, down, up, down, down, up.
So it'll sound like this.
Down, up, down, up, down, up, down.
I can spice it up a little bit, make it a little bit more intricate, but remember, we're trying to keep these songs slightly simple so that you can learn them, memorize them and play them through from the beginning to end. So that is Bob Dylan's Knocking on Heaven's Door. Practice it and hopefully you'll be able to pick it up quickly.
